Jules Chaponartist • painterHeemstede 1914-2007 Saint-Cyprien (Frankrijk)

The artist Jules Chapon devoted at least the first 20 years of his career to painting figurative landscapes in a naive-realistic style in the tradition of his teachers, the Haarlem painters Henry Boot and Kees Verwey. After 1956 Chapon turned to abstraction, inspired primarily by the Cobra movement. This also led him to meet his future wife, Polly, who had opened Galerie Espace in Haarlem with Eva Bendien that same year. Their first exhibition showcased Cobra artists, who Bendien and Jules Chapon had visited beforehand in Paris. In the 1960s Chapon also began working on a monumental scale. His designs for stained glass windows and steel walls set with sparkling glass convey an optimistic faith in the Dutch reconstruction effort.